Live Budweiser FA Cup football coming to Facebook

Facebook is constantly looking at new ways to keep its users interested in the site, especially recently following the increased competition in the sector. Now if you like your English football and are a Facebook user we have some good news for you. This week live Budweiser FA Cup football is coming to Facebook as this year’s competition gets underway.

This Friday Ascot Untied and Wembley FC start this season’s FA Cup with a match which will be shown live to Facebook users. The two non league sides meet in an extra preliminary round game that kicks off at 7.45 BST. Budweiser are the new sponsor of the FA Cup and according to the BBC the ninety minute internet stream will be funded by them.

There is the potential for the game to be watched by 700 million people on the social networking site, but it is not expected to reach the majority of users. This will also be the first broadcast of its type anywhere in sport, and Ian Newell, Budweiser’s marketing director said “Budweiser is committed to bringing the world’s most prestigious knockout competition closer to the fans”.

Newell added “What better way to demonstrate this than by broadcasting the very first kick to a global audience via Facebook?” This seasons FA Cup will see a total of 763 clubs competing, and the winner of Fridays game will have to navigate through a further five rounds to get into the first round proper.

The big clubs such as Manchester United and Arsenal from the English Premier League don’t enter the competition until the third round, which takes place at the beginning of January 2012. The final will be held at Wembley Stadium on the 5th of May 2012.

The live stream will be made available via an application that is built-in to Budweiser’s UK Facebook page. Will you be watching the game on Friday?